2003 Buick Century Custom Sedan 4-door 3.1l Only 104,000 Miles on 2040-cars

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Consumer Reports says infotainment systems 'growing first-year reliability plague'

The Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Survey (right) is out, and the top two spots look much the same as last year's list with Lexus and Toyota in first and second place, respectively. However, there are some major shakeups for 2014, with Acura plunging eight spots from third in 2013 to 11th this year, and Mazda replaces it on the lowest step of the podium. Honda and Audi round out the top five. This year's list includes six Japanese brands in the top 10, two Europeans, one America and one Korean.
Acura isn't the only one taking a tumble, though. Infiniti is the biggest loser this year by dropping 14 spots to 20th place. Other big losses come from Mercedes-Benz with an 11-place fall to 24th, and GMC, which declines 10 positions to 19th.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's not traditional mechanical bugs hauling down these automaker's reliability scores. Instead, pesky problems with infotainment systems are taking a series toll on the rankings. According to Consumer Reports, complaints about "in-car electronics" were the most grumbled about element in new cars. Problem areas included things like unresponsive touchscreens, issues pairing phones and multi-use controllers that refused to work right.

2018 Buick Regal TourX starts right around $30,000

The all-new Buick Regal is coming, and it's ditching the sedan bodystyle in favor of two liftback variants. This week, CarsDirect reported pricing on the more interesting of the two, the Regal TourX. While we're waiting on an official confirmation from Buick, at $29,995 (presumably before destination), the lifted-wagon will significantly undercut competitors from BMW, Volvo, and Audi. With standard all-wheel drive and a powerful turbocharged inline-four, the Regal TourX has the potential to steal som sales from the Europeans. CarsDirect bases its report on the latest Buick order guides. All versions of the Regal TourX come with all-wheel drive and a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four making 250 horsepower and 265 pound-feet of torque. The only available transmission is an eight-speed automatic. Push-button start, active-noise cancellation, and 18-inch wheels are part of the package. The Regal TourX Preferred bumps the price to $33,575. For the extra few hundred dollars, you get an auto-dimming rearview mirror, leather-wrapped steering wheel, power driver's seat, and door sill plates. There are also more colors available than on the base model. Further options include a $1,240 driver's assistance package with blind-spot monitoring, rear park assist, and cross-traffic alert, and a $1,200 panoramic moonroof. A fully loaded, top-trim Regal TourX rings in at $38,860. Direct competitors are difficult to name. The pricing is above something like the Volkswagen Golf Alltrack, but far less than the Audi A4 Allroad, Volvo V60 Cross Country, or a BMW 3 Series wagon. It ought to offer more power and refinement than a Subaru Outback, but we'll have to wait to drive it before we can make a final call. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2018 Buick Regal TourX: New York 2017 View 12 Photos News Source: CarsDirectImage Credit: AOL Buick Wagon buick regal tourx

Junkyard Gem: 1957 Buick Special Riviera Sedan

While I find plenty of 1950s Detroit cars in quick-inventory-turnover self-service wrecking yards during my travels, they tend to be the ordinary post sedans that were built by the millions during the heyday of the three-on-the-tree manual transmission and nuclear-attack symbols on car radios. The more sought-after convertibles, coupes, and four-door hardtops are tougher to find in such yards, which makes today's 1957 Buick Special Riviera in a yard in northeastern Colorado an A-List Junkyard Gem. During the late 1950s, the Special ranked at the bottom of the Buick prestige hierarchy just below the more upscale Super and Century. Of course, this was the era of Alfred Sloan's "Ladder of Success" and the lowliest Special outranked even the nicest Olds Ninety-Eight on the Swank-O-Meter. If you were the Buick-driving Joneses and your neighbors had proletarian Chevrolets, aspirational Pontiacs, or petit-bourgeois Oldsmobiles, they were failing to keep up with you… but then you'd see a new Cadillac and feel intense envy for your victorious rival. The Ladder of Success collapsed later on, when the top-trim-level Chevy Caprices began to compete against their Cadillac Calais big brother, but it was still standing tall in 1957. The Riviera name ended up being used for its own distinct model starting in 1963 and continuing nearly into our current century, but in 1957 it was a trim level designation, used to indicate a Century or Special sedan with the then-radical pillarless hardtop design. This car listed at $2,780, which comes to a cool $27,630 in 2021 dollars. That price included the 364-cubic-inch (6.0-liter) Buick Nailhead V8 engine, rated at 250 horsepower and enough torque to peel 1957's rock-hard bias-ply tires right off their rims. The Special had a three-on-the-tree column-shift manual as standard equipment, but the original buyer of this car sprang for the extra $220 ($2,185 today) to get the Dynaflow transmission. While the shift indicator looks just like the ones on GM cars equipped with the two-speed Powerglide, the Dynaflow was an odd beast used only in Buicks; while it had gears for two forward speeds, the driver had to select low gear manually. Otherwise, a complex torque converter rig provided an experience something like today's CVTs (though with better smoothness and much more wasted power), in which the car stayed in high gear all the time and used the torque converter to multiply as needed.